


Five Cups of Tea

by dee-light (DraloreShimare)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraloreShimare/pseuds/dee-light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are five mugs lined up on the nightstand by his bed, evidence of John Watson’s slow surrender.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Cups of Tea

There are five mugs lined up on the nightstand by his bed, evidence of John Watson’s slow surrender. 

The first well-brewed, has only the faintest smudge of tea in the bottom. Made just after the funeral, he’d drunk it on automatic, gulped it hot, the liquid burning down his throat and leaving him gasping. John had slammed it onto the scuffed wood, clinging to his anger as he shucked his suit, the jacket crumpling across the footboard, shoes thudding against the wall. He slept that night with his brows furrowed and lips twisted into a scowl.

The second has a ring of dried tea where it had been left perhaps a quarter full. 

The third, tea a ring around the middle of the mug, bag stuck to the inside. John remembered pressing the bag between spoon and cup to wring the last bit of strength out, suddenly infuriatingly angry at himself for no reason at all. He’d scowled at the cup, clutched tightly between his hands, and begun to stomp into the living room before the anger drained away just as suddenly as it came, leaving him to sink, despondent, into his chair. He’d nursed the cup along, hours maybe, before staggering up the stairs for bed, nestling it at the end of the line.

The fourth is barely sipped, growing a dark green mold that floats atop the tea like cream on milk.

The fifth is from yesterday morning, the last morning John Watson deigned to rise from his bed, and sits untouched. Rising from his bed had been an empty impulse. Boiling the kettle, pulling the mug from the cupboard, stopping his arm from reaching for a second. His RAMC mug, he’d noticed as he went through the motions; teabag into the mug, water in afterward. A pause while he let it brew, busying his hands with toasting a slice of stale bread. Perhaps steeped too long; it was black by the time he gripped the handle to set it next to the plate on the table. He remembered sitting, staring for long moments at the unappetizing spread before standing to make a slow round of the flat, fingers lingering silently on chair backs and shelf edges, mind a blank.

Now he stares at them, unseeing, hair greasy and askew, knuckles stiff from clutching the duvet tightly around his shoulders. He’s slept, though he can’t remember when just now. But he aches, and he’s tired from sleeping so long and not enough, and so he won’t bother trying to remember. And he thinks he’s being childish, and maybe he is; his father, were he still alive, would probably march into the room this instant and tell him to get up, stand on his own two feet and be a man. To face life head-on. 

Just, at the moment, John feels deflated, empty, full of too much grief and too much self-recrimination when he can think past it all.

He sighs, brow furrowing, and curls deeper into his bedding, trying not to think at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to LapOtter for the beta, and for encouraging this work to grow! Inspired by [this image](http://www.flickr.com/photos/icouldntsay/5601449787/).


End file.
